I was looking at the two giant Glimmerwasp tearing through the dear carcass in front of me. Insects of those sizes did not exist back on Earth due to the oxygen concentration and impact of gravity on exoskeletons when they get too large. However, I guessed mana probably removed those hard limitations as the two wasps in front of me were the size of house cats.
The faint smell of blood drifted through the air as more of the deer carcass got torn open. They are going for the innards first, a grim reminder of what could happen to me if I was not careful. These wasps would have been nightmare fuel for people back on Earth, reminding him of The Mist released in 2007.
I picked these wasps out as the next type of beasts to hunt as their nectar was strangely valuable. Their grade did not go above orange but they were not valuable enough for high grade adventurers to hunt them. Higher grade adventurers also needed to hunt beasts of the same grade to progress their core and materials from high grade beast could be sold for the same if not more coin. However, they were unusually dangerous for same grade adventurers to hunt.
Their mobility, venom, ability to use simple light magic, and tendency to swarm or cluster together into bigger nests were what made them more dangerous for Orange grade adventurers. Most Orange grade adventurers also tended to have a more limited spell repertoire and had limited combat experience and usually avoided these wasps. While their nectar had medicinal uses, they were mostly used by nobles for their dessert.
Their scarcity and the appeal to the nobles as a luxury good was what made their nectar so valuable. At least valuable enough for an orphan like me for me to risk my bottom. Separately, this was also an opportunity for me to test my ability to hunt orange grade beasts as the red cored beasts barely gave me anything at this point.
The beast compendium did say that harvesting their entire sac holding the nectar would make it more valuable, though I doubt that I was dexterous enough to remove it without any damage. Best case was to harvest the nectar while minimizing wastage; I looked to the small leather pouch I bought and hoped that it was enough.
I used the last of my silver to purchase the pouch along with a new hunting knife, hopefully expediting any insect dissection I had to do.
I prepared Lightning Bolt as soon as I got close enough and released it on the closer wasp, aiming for the thorax area, incase the wasp dodged or moved last minute. There was a brief boom as my spell ripped across the distance between me and the wasp before lighting it up. There was a huge zap sound and the wasp collapsed to the side of the deer, and I could see smoke sizzling from its chitin shell.
The other wasp immediately took to the air, I could see it making a turn in the air to look for the source of danger and found me immediately. I could see the abdomen brightening as it was preparing its light discharge that I read about. Glimmer was probably a misleading description as those discharge were closer to a flash bang without the sound.
However, it was too far away now for the discharge to have any effect, and it decided to dive head first towards me. I could see the sting was extended as it got read to jab me and pump me full of venom if its head tackle was successful.
As it got close, I activated the pre-programmed commands for Lightning Infusion to trigger a side way evasive jump. I jumped a lot further than I normally would be able to but I could still feel the rush of air behind me before hearing a thud sound as I evaded to the left.
I looked back and saw that the wasp's jaws were locked jabbed into the tree bark, with its abdomen bent forward and its sting embedded in the thick trunk of the tree. There was a pulsing motion from its abdomen as the sting was probably pumping the tree full of its venom.
I did not hesitate and cast a second lightning bolt aiming for the giant abdomen. The sound of thunder cracked through the air as the bolt hit the wasp right in the abdomen, before promptly bursting the entire abdomen like an overheated watermelon.
The second wasp's head remained stuck against the tree trunk. I could still see the jaws flexing and feelers moving about as it tried to pry itself free, not realising it was already missing its body. Damn it, there goes one nectar sac as I looked at the gooey mess around the tree.
Obviously super heated liquid would explode, I mentally chastised myself. But considering the pace of the battle, I had to prioritise taking down the wasps rather than preserving the nectar. At least the first one was intact. I walked over to the first wasp I managed to ambush and could smell odour of burnt hair mixed with a weird chemical sweetness.
I bent down by the body and felt for the core in its abdomen. I placed my hand on the slightly warm chitin and absorbed the mana from the core. This was the first time I absorbed an orange core and I could feel the marked difference in quality versus the red cores from the boars.
I felt the Weave ping me as I absorbed the core and let it appear as I was curious to know how much Mana Core Capacity I would get. The flood of notifications that I had been ignoring since the battle begun popped up.
[Lightning Bolt leveled up 1 -> 2]
[You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 400]
[You have leveled up 12 -> 13]
[You have absorbed an Orange Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 75]
Hmmm, only a three times multipler I thought. Different from the five times increase in requirement to progress each level between Orange and Red. I briefly pondered potential reasons for the inconsistency before I dismissed the notification. At least the Tier 2 spell scaling was confirmed.
I pulled out my hunting knife and began trying to cut through the abdomen slowly by inserting the knife between the gaps in the chitin plates. I was not familiar with wasp anatomy and I did not want to risk damaging the nectar sac. I took my time before I found what I thought might be the sac.
However, looking at the slightly burnt condition of the sac, my heart dropped as I prepared myself mentally. I prepared the pouch and made a slight prick on the sac with my knife. True enough, what came out was more akin to burnt jam that has a tar like consistency. Nothing like the viscous but flowing nectar described in the books.
I had to revise my hunting strategy, if my lightning spells were going to fry the goods, no point risking my skin as I could probably hunt other orange beasts if I just wanted to level my core. At least my put together hack of a mobility spell worked.
I pulled open my Lightning Brain mutation menu and looked over the list of pre-programmed actions that took me three weeks to make.
Lightning Brain Instruction List:
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups for a high jump: Activated when user thinks of "LI Up"
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups to jump to the left: Activated when user thinks of "LI Left"
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups to jump diagonally backwards to the left: Activated when user thinks of "LI Back-Left"
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups to jump backwards: Activated when user thinks of "LI Back"
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups to jump diagonally backwards to the right: Activated when user thinks of "LI Back-Right"
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups to jump to the right: Activated when user thinks of "LI Right"
Lightning Infusion on muscle groups to dash forward: Activated when user thinks of "LI Forward"
The last one I created incase I had to chase something down. I was worried there would be a limitation on the number of slots I had but it seemed I had not hit that limit yet. I knew I could probably compress the different movements into a single cluster that activated different muscles based on different commands but it was easier to manage for the time being.
I felt reassured that my theoretical strategy actually worked. I just needed to find a way to take down the wasp without burning the nectar.
Perhaps if I could aim for the head, or just clip its wings to remove their mobility as the wings were normally quite fragile. There was only one way to find out.
It took the better part of two hours before I could locate another pair. While I could see through the woods with Electro Perception, my range was still quite limited and I usually heard the buzzing of the wings before I could usually see them.
Nevertheless, I kept the spell on just to sweep for other potential beasts that might ambush me, though I mostly saw only smaller insects and critters that did not have cores.
I approached this pair from the side and I could see the pair was higher up on a large tree this time, tending to what looked like a nest.
Since I did not have to ensure maximum damage immediately, I split my capacity and cast two Lightning Bolt instead of one. One from each hand, aiming for the wings on the back of the two wasps on the tree. This pair was slightly larger that the last two wasps I killed, somewhere between a house cat and a dog.
I throttled the spell intensity down a little by adjusting how much mana I fed into the spell form and released both the spells, the sound cracked through the air as both the Lightning Bolt arced through the air at the same time. For a moment, I was reminded of a scene from a famous ghost hunting franchise where the character warned not to cross the beams.
Both the wasps fell from the tree and considering their weight and the soft forest floor, I doubt they were actually hurt from the fall. Though I could see the wings smoking on their backs and their movements were awkward as they tried to crawl towards me while trying to flap their wings at the same time.
Under normal circumstances, they could probably also travel over the ground rather quickly but it seemed like they were still shrugging off the mild electric therapy I just gave them. I did not give them time to recover and aimed a lightning bolt to their head, one after the other.
I could still smell the odour of burnt hair coming from their head but the presence of that weird chemical sweetness was not apparent this time. It probably came from either the venom or nectar burning the first time round.
I waited for a bit to confirm both wasps were dead and gave them another few more zaps at the head for good measure. As a famous Columbus once said, rule number two "Double Tap". I got closer to the first wasp and could feel the energy at its core, which confirmed that it was dead.
I absorbed both the cores before briefly opening the notifications and dismissed them to get rid of that mental ping at the back of my head.
[You have absorbed a Orange Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 75]
[You have absorbed a Orange Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 75]
Hmmm, no level up for Lightning Bolt. Tier 2 spells were probably more difficult to progress like I expected.
I bent down and pulled out my hunting knife. Moment of truth, I would find out whether my new strategy worked in a few moments.